Years ago, when women trusted me, or at least one particular woman did, I was tasked with looking after her 6 year old boy, and 9 year old daughter. So, I brought over a case a beer, and let them do their thing, while I explored the wonderful universe that was pay-tv. At some point, my ears started to hurt due to their screamings of some such, which disturbed my enjoyment of both beverage and moving pictures. I confronted the pair of spawn thusly:

Me: Quit Fighting! I'm concentrating on something important.

Boy: She started it!

Girl: He stole my *whatever*

Me: That'll get you far in the middle east negotiations. I don't really care what you were fighting about. Quit it!

Boy (or girl): blah blah blah

Me: Okay, listen....Apparently laws have changed, and I can no long strike you, which not only limits my options, but oddly makes me jealous of my parents. So, I am going to do the next best thing. I am going to take away the letter "A" {quizical looks}. Neither of you can use the letter A for the rest of the night. You can't use any words with the letter A within them....not talking, nor writing.Girl: What?!?!?!

Me: No, that is not allowed! You can ask "Why" or maybe "How" but not "What" as there is an A in that word {further quizzical looks, though they seem to be getting the idea". And if you break those rules, I will go further and take away "E". If you think A is hard, E is 3 times harder.

This had an interesting effect. They both stared at each other, then tried to talk to each other for the rest of the night without using the letter "A", without screaming, I will note. There was peace in the house and I was able to get good and drunk, and everything was great.

Still have no kids, but I bet I would do a good job if I did. I think I would have a good shot at middle east peace negotiator, too.

I adopted a newborn. The only hormones that bother me are my daughter's.

Dear sweet Jesus! I didn't think girls got bat-shiat insane till puberty. How wrong I was! One time when she was 7 she said she wouldn't talk to me till I apologized. I said I would, but I had no idea what I was apologizing for. She put her hand on her hip and said "Well if you don't know what you did, I'm certainly not going to tell you."

And I thought - WTF... are we married?

On the plus side, girls are ridiculously easy to embarrass. As my daughter found out when we were out in public once and she began to misbehave. She chose to disbelieve my threat to start dancing if she didn't stop. And she kept on disbelieving till I got up on a nearby table and began dancing.

Now when we're in public and she starts any shiat, all I have to do is twitch my hips. The look of abject horror that spreads across her face is a joy to behold.

CrazyCracka420:As an expecting parent of our first child I'm going to go with the Native American approach and not going to encourage the baby to cry (by not responding to the crying). First time it starts crying it's going to be hung up on a tree out back for 30 minutes (obviously exaggerating, but I will do my best not to respond to crying, as to not encourage it).

Will pay plenty of attention to the child, but will not be a helicopter parent. I will teach them to be aware of their surroundings and will not be driving them everywhere. They can walk to the bus stop and home without my supervision. If we live close enough to the school, they can walk to the school and back without needing me to supervise or give them a ride to/from school.

I will not overfeed my child, I will do my best to feed them non-processed foods. I will encourage them to be active physically as well as mentally. I will not indoctrinate them with religion, I will allow them to be a child.

This reminded me of the Tina Fey playing Sarah Palin interview on SNL, which I can't find a video of on YouTube (as is generally the case because NBC is jerks about that sort of thing), but of which I was able to find a handy transcript of the relevant portion:

POEHLER AS COURIC: "What lessons have you learned from Iraq and how specifically, would you spread democracy abroad?"

FEY AS PALIN: "Specifically, we would make every effort possible to spread democracy abroad to those who want it."

elementcircle:profplump: Burr: It's almost like different children might have completely different personalities and may require differing parenting styles!

Adults are different and might have completely different personalities and may require completely different management styles. But none of those styles are allowed to including hitting, even for adults subject to reduced freedom or mental capacity. In fact we'd be particularly upset if we found that patients confined in a psychiatric facility were being hit to modify their behavior. Why it hitting acceptable for children?

Because it is the only consequence that some respond to. Yes, there a SMALL few number of children that magically do what they're told or fear punishment like having their video games taken away, but the majority do NOT respond to anything short of a couple of whacks on the ass with a belt (A COUPLE, not till their ass bleeds, you moron) and being stripped of all things "fun" and confined to their room like prison. Take a look at that kid that stole his grandmothers car a few years ago. That kid thinks he's hot shiat because of it and because there was no REAL punishment ("oh no, I'm grounded, but I've been on TV how many times?!"). You can take your coddling bullshiat and shove it up your ass. People like you are the reason we have to give trophies to failures and handouts to the lazy.

CrazyCracka420:As an expecting parent of our first child I'm going to go with the Native American approach and not going to encourage the baby to cry (by not responding to the crying). First time it starts crying it's going to be hung up on a tree out back for 30 minutes (obviously exaggerating, but I will do my best not to respond to crying, as to not encourage it).

Will pay plenty of attention to the child, but will not be a helicopter parent. I will teach them to be aware of their surroundings and will not be driving them everywhere. They can walk to the bus stop and home without my supervision. If we live close enough to the school, they can walk to the school and back without needing me to supervise or give them a ride to/from school.

I will not overfeed my child, I will do my best to feed them non-processed foods. I will encourage them to be active physically as well as mentally. I will not indoctrinate them with religion, I will allow them to be a child.

Oh man. I can't even begin to tell you how excited the rest of us are for you. I mean, I always pray that irresponsible drug addicted morons will have more kids. It's just BETTER when they spout of nonsense about how they expect it's going to be. Because then you can tell them how desperately wrong they are.

whizbangthedirtfarmer:I was absolutely stunned at the competitiveness a lot of moms had with one another about their kids. I was a stay-at-home dad for the first year or so my son was around, and I ended up in the mom club. Maybe it was the devastating boredom of raising a baby, but damn, they went after each other.

I was absolutely stunned at the competitiveness a lot of moms had with one another about their kids. I was a stay-at-home dad for the first year or so my son was around, and I ended up in the mom club. Maybe it was the devastating boredom of raising a baby, but damn, they went after each other.

CrazyCracka420:They can walk to the bus stop and home without my supervision. If we live close enough to the school, they can walk to the school and back without needing me to supervise or give them a ride to/from school.

Wait, wait wait! Are you aware of how many kids get kidnapped every year? There are child predators in every neighborhood. Just get on the internet and you will see how crazy this world is.

This never happened in 1990. It's as if the internet made people go crazy and kill and rape people.